As a library assistant, my primary role is to man the circulation side of the desk. This includes helping patrons with all the basic library interactions; checking out, study rooms, finding books, library policy questions, and the occasional reference question. But lately, much of my time has been devoted to stacks maintenance. For this I’ve been taking inventory of every item in the library, weeding out those that are old and damaged, shelf-reading, and marking down the items that are missing. A full inventory hasn’t been taken in many years, I’ve been told, so it’s a task that’s long overdue.

In addition to this project, I recently labeled all of the bookshelves and finished writing a new circulation training manual for new employees, with the help of Alissa.

When would you most likely meet or talk with me?

I’ll be available a lot for the next week, because I’m covering Evelyn’s vacation. So any time after 12:30 works for me.

What do you like about working in the library?

I love being a caretaker of knowledge, so-to-speak. While my first passion is fiction, I do have a huge appreciation for science. So being able to lead doctors and medical students to a vast database of scientific information is a great privilege for me. I also enjoy the quiet, academic atmosphere of libraries like this.

What do you like to do outside of work?

Like I said, my first love is fiction—and specifically fiction writing. I have a masters in writing and I’m currently trying to publish a few novels. I also write full time for a news website called the Inquisitr. And outside of that, I’m an amateur musician and a cat lover. But my most unusual hobby is creating/coding original digital pinball tables.

Scopus is “the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature: scientific journals, books and conference proceedings.” Scopus has 692 education journals included in its broad database, making it a useful resource to use when you are seeking research on education-related topics.

Access Scopus through the direct link on the McGoogan Library website, located in the Literature Databases section on the right-hand side of http://www.unmc.edu/library .

Drill down to the information you seek by using the Refine functions on the left side of the results screen. You can select year of publication, author names, subject area, document type, keywords to include, source type, and language of publication. The sample search was refined with: 2013-2015 years selected, and keyword: medical education.

Additional help is available when searching this information resource. The McGoogan Library Education & Research Services librarians have created a guide for your reference when searching Scopus. You can also refer to the search instructions given at the Scopus Help site: http://help.scopus.com/. For personal assistance, you can email askus@unmc.edu, and an Education & Research Services librarian will meet with you in-person, via phone or online technology to assist you with searching.

The library is now a Supporter Member with BioMed Central. UNMC faculty, staff, and students can now reap all the benefits of publishing a research article in an open access journal and receive a 15% discount on article processing charges. This is true regardless of the number of papers you publish.

When submitting a manuscript, either via a journal home page or via http://www.biomedcentral.com/manuscript/, you will be identified as belonging to UNMC and automatically granted a 15% discount on article processing charges if you are accessing the pages while on the UNMC campus. If you are at home or at an external terminal when submitting your paper, you can still claim this discount by stating your affiliation to UNMC.

A new display, featuring Andreas Vesalius, is now available on the 8th floor of the library. Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), was born on December 31, 1514. He was the leading anatomist of his day, professor at the University of Padua in Italy, and he corrected some anatomical misinformation from the ancients such as Hippocrates and Galen. See a story on him here.

Vesalius’ landmark work was De corporis humani fabrica libri septem (Seven books on the fabric of the human body), first published in 1543, with a second edition published in 1555. The McGoogan Library owns a second edition, donated in 1959 by the estate of Goldie (Goddin) Potts, widow of John B. Potts, M.D, (1876-1948), Professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine from 1912 to 1937. He received his M.D. in 1907 from the College of Medicine. According to a recent census in which we participated, there are 58 copies of the 1555 edition in 49 university and institutional libraries across the U.S.

Also on display on the 6th floor, behind the former reference desk area, is a two volume set, The fabric of the human body: an annotated translation of the 1543 and 1555 editions, by Daniel H. Garrison and Malcolm H. Hast, published in 2014. This is a complete translation from the Latin, and facsimile of both the first and second editions which patrons can look through at their leisure.